2011 Heysham Obs report ready

Heysham Obs
The 2011 report is ready and printed.  Thanks very much to Tony Moriarty for facilitating this and EDF Energy for use of their photocopier.  The report can be obtained from Heysham NR office or Leighton Moss for £2-50 per copy. 

As Heysham is primarily a migration monitoring site, it acts as a barometer for what is going on at the relevant time of year in a wider regional context.  So even if you have no intention of visiting, the content is by no means 'site-specific' and will be useful if you want to learn about general migration in this area, the species involved and the time of year to look for them.  For example, the seabird information will be helpful if it is more convenient for you to watch from the Stone Jetty, the Carnforth Slag Tips or Jenny Brown's Point as a significant proportion of the same birds are involved on any given day.

Anyone wanting a postal copy, please send a cheque for £3-50 (not £3 as was accidentally published elsewhere) to Pete Marsh, Leck View Cottage, Ashley's Farm, High Tatham LA2 8PH & dont forget to leave your address!

Heysham NR
Siskin - male in the alders giving a short burst of song
Water Rail - at least one, probably two in the reedbed

Harbour pm
Shag - 6
Kittiwake - c15
Guillemot - 1

North wall pm
Twite - 16 in the afternoon, c30 reported in the morning
Linnet - 3
Goldfinch - 1
Blackbird - 1
Eider - 2 males

Thanks Pete

Single Siskin

Harbour SW Corner
5 Shags
18 Kittiwakes

North Harbour Wall
1 Guillemot
2 Adult Med Gulls
33 Twite to Nyger

HNR office area1 Siskin caught and ringed

Middleton NR
Gadwall - pair

Thanks for these, Janet

Atlas vigil

Heysham Obs
A day off work putting BTO atlas roving records on to an excel sheet as requested, working to the 31st Jan deadline, so didnt go on to the BTO site.  500+ records later, I was informed of this:  "We have extended the deadline for online data submissions to 20 February 2012"!    At least it has been done.

Hopefully this will give more time to add more of the roving records gathered during consultancy work.  Any consultants out there who have covered an obscure atlas-deficient location only to hide behind the excuse that "its not our data to put on BTO site"?   I have only had one example in 15 years of consultancy work where a client has expressed a wish for records not to be released and this was for a very understandable reason.  Please check with your clients and go for it!

Pretty low key stuff by all accounts with some of the seabirds having seemingly departed overnight:

Guillemot - one harbour mouth
Shag - 6+ in the harbour
Kittiwake - c20
Twite - 6 on seed
Goldfinch - 2 with above
Rock Pipit - one

Thanks very much for these, Janet - it looks much brighter than the other day - there have been two birds reported

Routine coverage

Heysham Obs
Twite - 16 early on, then disappeared
Med Gull - one adult
Little Gull - 2CY outfalls
Kittiwake - at least 20 around
Shag - at least 6 around
Guillemot - 3
Wigeon - 105 Red Nab area

Shag numbers maintained

Heysham Obs
Calm weather led to a concerted effort to try and see if the Black Redstart was around.  No joy.

North wall/harbour/outfalls
Little Gull - 2CY outfalls
Kittiwake - 29 (5 outfalls)
Shag - 10 quite possibly 11 SW corner of harbour
Guillemot - 3 SW corner harbour
Rock Pipit - the wintering bird at inner end of wooden jetty - looked very petrosus with sullied underparts and very dusky outer tail feathers (as you would perhaps expect in the 'rocky coast habitat' as opposed to outer saltmarsh?)
Meadow Pipit - one sandworks, poss 2
Twite - 14 instantly on to the new supply of food!
Med Gull - one adult on mudflats

HN reserve
Meadow Pipit - one landed in non-op land

Variety of seabirds maintained in calm weather

Heysham Obs
Surprised that 4/4 of the windblown seabird species were still 'available' at high tide, especially Little Gull.  It will be interesting to see what happens as the weather goes really pear-shaped in the next 2-3 weeks....assuming not snowbound at home

Inshore at high tide
Little Gull - 2CY stage 2 outfall
Guillemot - 3 SW corner harbour
Shag - 3 SW corner harbour, wooden jetty roost not checked
Twite - at least 16 but only seen in flight
Med Gull - two adults fisher's roof
Kittiwake - 28 SW corner harbour, two outfalls

Middleton NR
Gadwall - pair on 'no swimming' pond
Teal - 18 - highest count of the winter
Tufted Duck - 3

Heysham NR office area
Green Woodpecker- almost but not quite added to the ringing list for here!
Greenfinch - 5 unringed trapped
Goldfinch - 3 unringed trapped
Blue Tit - amazingly, two unringed adults trapped
Far fewer birds than expected at the feeder, but everyones feeding them this weekend, aren't they!!

Grounded

Heysham Obs
Checking the tide and any other mini-excursions from the office just didnt happen!

Twite - c15 on the food mid-morning
Goldfinch - 3 on food
Mistle Thrush - 1 around the NHW.
Green Woodpecker - heard calling by the HNR office

Thanks to Tony for printing the first 40 copies of the 2011 Heysham Bird Observatory report - it should be on the shelves later this weekend- thanks to Alan for putting covers on and ring-binding- at Leighton Moss and available at Monday's LDBWS meeting as well as to anyone calling in HNR office

Postal copies: Please send cheque for £3-50 to Pete Marsh, Leck View Cottage, Ashley's Farm, High Tatham LA2 8PH.  Make sure your address is included!

Lifelisting Green Woodpecker

Heysham Obs
A recent strand on the LDBWS site concerned a wish to see a Green Woodpecker and advice was given on how to do so.  Go back 30 years to the early days  of the Obs and any suggestion that this would be a reliable site (also for Jay and Treecreeper) would be treated as not being serious.  Today, the gentleman concerned achieved his ambition with good views of Green Woodpecker below the classroom along with 'one of' the wintering Treecreeper.  This just shows how the habitat around Heysham Obs has subtely changed.  This has not helped assessing the daily arrival of migrants, providing in those earlier years you did manage to get up at some ridiculous hour and monitor/intercept with mist nets the 'rush through the bush' as they headed inland for more food/shelter-friendly habitat, but it has certainly increased the number of off-passage birds and variety of breeding birds (e.g. no Blackcap and Chiffchaff nesting in the early days).  Thanks to Nick for many of the sightings today and Malcolm for the geese:

Pink-footed Goose
Quite a lot of indiscernible Pinkfoot movement over house throughout the night.  I was on shore off outflows first light. 2 flights (consisting 4 - 5 flocks each) north between 7:45 & 8:15 totaling 148 & 180 pinkfoot (per Malcolm).

Heysham NR/dog-walk
Green Woodpecker - one below classroom
Treecreeper - one Nature park

Outfalls
Little Gull - 2CY
Kittiwake - 4

Thanks for these Janet, taken on the inner end of Heysham 2 outfall

Harbour and area
Med Gull - 2 adults
Twite - 22 at lunchtime, including 6 unringed and one bearing autumn 2011 Machrihanish SBO sequence
Goldfinch - 2 as above
Guillemot - 1+
Shag - 2+

Moths
2 Dotted Border

Groggy Peacock hits the headlines

Heysham Obs
A Peacock butterfly was found by the NR car park by the visiting Arnside NHS group, but it was somewhat lethargic.  Presumably the same was seen in flight during some late afternoon sun.  Thanks to ANHS & Janet for bird records.  All photos by Janet

Inshore sightings
Little Gull - 2CY appeared on the outfalls just after the group had left

Kittiwake - 20-25
Guillemot c6
Shag - c9
Twite - 14 at lunchtime, including 3 unringed birds
Goldfinch - 2 with above
Med Gull - adult north wall, 2 adults on the old Fisher's roof
Pink-footed Goose - 19 SE

Moth
Parsnip Moth in the trap

Dreary day for departing Pinkfeet!

Heysham Obs
Poor visibility today and a quick whizz round did not include any long-range scans of the outfalls/wooden jetty

Pink-footed Goose
c1,400 north-east around 0800hrs this morning

Ocean edge south beach tide edge
No obvious wader flocks to disturb at high tide so did the tide-edge walk - two year ticks!
Jack Snipe - one flushed from the 'inner corner' - flew & landed again about 50m south
Common Snipe - one along the shingle section
Skylark - one flushed by accident from the shingle section and it towered off to the south
Reed Bunting - one, possibly two, flushed from tide edge

North wall
Twite - 13, including 3 unringed birds
Dunnock - one with above

Gate 38 area pre-fencing work (no access once work has commenced)
Shag - 7
Kittiwake - 22
Guillemot - none visible